~ Ink and Fountain Pen Reviews

Category Archives: Sailor

Something I’ve been meaning to post about for a while is a strange phenomenon that occurs when sheen-prone ink is at the last but of a pen’s fill (i.e., still able to write but going to need a refill very soon).

Sheeny inks’, well, sheen appears to concentrate itself on the page when the pen is running low. I’m guessing this has to do with evaporation, as diluting sheeny ink will do the opposite.

It’s a really fun thing to have happen, if somewhat unpredictable.

Here’s a sample of Sailor Sky High in a Waterman 52½V that was running low. You can see the intense sheen on the “Wa”, and the lessened amount on the “ter…”, which is when I stopped and refilled.

The Ambassador body, which I’ve not been able to find any info on, came in a box of parts pens. I thought it looked neat. The steel nib wasn’t salvageable, but the rest was in great condition, and a spare Waterman #2 left oblique nib fit perfectly. I did have to substantially deepen and expand the feed’s channels, but after the ebonite dust cleared I had myself a wonderful little pen that I dubbed the Ambassador 52. I consider it to be like a “sleeper” car; it looks cheap until you get in on that long Rhodia highway to stretch its legs tines.

Here are my three favorite blues for when I’m writing on less-than-ideal paper.

Otherwise good behaving, heavily-shading and/or sheening inks more often than not are rendered by bad paper into flat, feathering, bleedthrough-prone monstrosities.

But not these three inks. Shading is heavy on all three and bleedthrough isn’t an issue at all.

Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron: A part if Noodler’s Warden Series, their most fraud resistant inks currently produced. Feathering sent a problem and shading is heavy. There’s even a tad of the ink’s subtle sheen.

Sailor Sei-Boku: This ink is one of the only pigmented inks on the market that’s truly safe for regular use in fountain pens. On copy paper its behavior couldn’t be better. Shading and sheen are prominent. The sheen is especially striking considering the absorbency of the paper.

Rohrer & Klingner Salix: This is an iron gall ink, a category of ink that is known for its good behavior on a wide variety of paper.

There are but a few fountain pen inks I’ve tried that exhibit such a well-behaved disposition on cheapo copy paper, and Sei-Boku is one of my favorites.

Not only does it go on the page without feathering and have zero issues with bleedthrough, but it also exhibits two characteristics when written with flexible nibs that are hard to come by on copy paper: heavy shading and heavy sheen.

This has become one of my favorite dark blue inks. Sei-Boku, along with its dark black sibling, Kiwa-Guro, is a fountain pen-safe pigmented ink. The vast majority of fountain pen inks derive their beautiful hues from dyes rather than pigments, as pigments tend to clog the small channels of fountain pen feeds. And while I’m unsure of if this ink gets its color from only pigment or a mix of pigment and dyes (I’m guess the latter), I can attest that this ink ran through the test pens perfectly fine and without any trouble. And while the manufacturer recommends flushing your pen between fills of this ink, that’s a pretty good ink hygiene habit to get into anyways.

On the page this ink also has a very prominent red/pink sheen, which I’ve found is a common color of sheen for blue inks.

And the one big plus for me with this ink? Here’s what it looks like on cheapo copy paper:

Look at that shading! The best part? It retains its fantastic sheen on copy paper as well! There is only one other ink I can think of that don’t feather and shade heavily and retain sheen: J. Herbin Rouge Hematite 1670. But as for blue inks that share this great behavior? In my experience, only Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron and Rohrer and Klingner’s Salix (an iron gall ink).